Page 23 of Still Beating

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His face bunches like he’s in pain, and the fingers still clutching my side press harder. So hard, I feel his nails digging into my skin.

“Goddamn,” he breathes, eyes darkening. He bows his forehead to mine, rocking it back and forth. His knuckles and the thumb in my mouth are all that separate our lips as we just breathe, in and out, in and out, sharing air. “You’re killing me.”

He removes his thumb from my mouth and crushes his lips to mine in a sweltering kiss.

Time loses all sense of meaning as we map each other’s naked bodies with our hands, re-memorizing anything we might’ve forgotten in the time we spent apart.

Eventually our kisses ease into something lighter, something more playful as we grab the soap and finally make work of washing off the day.

My dick is still so fucking hard, as is his, so we don’t dally, or worry about making some sensual thing of it. We both know where this is headed.

Back home, we showered together more often than not, so it’s long since stopped being awkward. It’s just two people getting clean together. Routine. Methodical. Perfectly mundane.

Intimate in the purest sense of the word. Boners and all.

At one point, I throw the loofah I was using at his chest. Will grabs my wrist, tugging me to him with a growl that breaks a low laugh out of me. We’re all jabbing elbows and soapy fingers and not-so-secret looks as we fight for the shampoo.

It’s insane.

Loving him this easily…

Like every piece of me was made for every piece of him.

He adds a big blob of shampoo to my hair before pouring some out into his palm to run through his own hair.

Watching him now, it’s hard to believe it was just an hour ago, not even, that I was losing my shit on the side-streets of LA.

When he’s here, in reaching distance, it doesn’t feel so pathetic to want him, need him,breathefor him.

My mind plays back what happened outside the hotel as my eyes catch once more on the shadows under his eyes.

I’ve seen Will upset and scared before, but this time, it hits different. I’m not really sure why. Maybe because we hadn’t seen each other in ten days. Maybe because I had it all planned out in my head how I would greet him in the airport.

Maybe because for a second, even before he spoke, I was furious he jumped on a plane, days earlier than scheduled, all because I had a stupid panic attack.

I was ashamed. Still kind of am, to be honest.

Hanging my head, I wash the shampoo out of my hair.

Later,I tell myself. I’ll deal with all that later.

What matters is he’s here now. Naked and soapy and too fucking gorgeous to be real.

After rinsing out the suds from my hair, I step forward and press my hands to his chest, smoothing my fingers over his hard muscles. His heart thumps steadily against my palm. Nipples pebbling between my fingers.

Nope, definitely real.Yet impossibly all mine.

I watch through slitted eyes as he tips his head back, letting the water cascade down his face. He runs his fingers through his wet hair, washing out the soap, before slicking it back.

Stepping even closer, I press my nose to his stubbly jaw, and slide my eyes shut against the water beating down from above.

Big, strong hands come around my back as a mouth feathers across my temple. “Done?”

I hum, nodding as I rub my nose all up in his soapy, wet skin. He smells like me now, like my soap.

His fingers find the back of my head, much gentler now than they were before as he cradles my head, pulling it back just enough to bump noses. Then lips.

He flicks his tongue out, before replacing it with his teeth. He gives my bottom lip one last tug, then pulls back with that crooked, infuriating grin of his. “Turn around,” he orders deeply.


Tags: Jessie Walker Romance